Parrots in the wild are very busy creatures. They spend their day looking for food, nesting material, safe places to perch and water. Your pet parrot has a very different life. They spend their days sitting in a cage, with bars all around them, food and water handed to them in a little dish and some toys to chew on if they are lucky. It is no wonder to me, that many parrots end up with behavioural problems, and obesity.

This is where foraging comes into play. Firstly let me define foraging, it is the act of  looking or searching for food, or provisions. For most parrots, searching for food, means turning left to the dish hanging on the cage bars. Surely it would be more fun for them to make it interesting?

Now, possibly you will go to lots of trouble, making foraging toys, and buying commercially produced ones, and your bird still just sits and eats at their dish! So firstly you need to teach him how to forage. Feed your bird as normal, but remove all of their favourite treats from their dish. Then hang small dishes all over the cage with a very small amount of their treats in each one. They will learn to explore every corner of their cage to find their treats. Next make it a little more difficult. Wrap the treat in paper bun cases, or coffee filter paper. Stuff shredded paper and some treats inside toilet roll holders. Make a tree out rolled up newspaper and hide treats in the branches or trunk of the tree.

Use your imagination, and anything you have lying round the houses to make foraging and shredding toys for your birds.  Above all, have fun!